Chapter Text
Achilles had not realised at first just what the contract would entail.
He had focused on the fact it would mean Patroclus was somewhere he deserved to be, a warrior's honour in Elysium, not rotting away in Tartarus.
Just a small trade of their places, that was all it was.
Even if he couldn't visit the man he loved.
It was fine, he had the knowledge that at least their ashes should be together, the others would have at least honoured that request he hoped - even if only Odysseus had seen to it, he was an honourable man and would stand by his word to bury their ashes together.
Time passed, days, weeks, months, years; years that all blurred together within the House of Hades.
Hades had always been strict, unyielding with his authority as he ruled the underworld with an ease that only came from practice.
His mother had never said anything of the Chthonic gods, only briefly speaking of even those on Olympus.
Nyx reminded him of Thetis, in some sense - both serene and detached, speaking eloquently, seeming above everyone else.
There was no real way to keep track of the time, aside from one small anomaly to the House's usually sour demeanour.
Zagreus was a small bundle of energy ever since the two had first met, involving an accident wherein the boy had tripped on the edge of the cloak that Achilles wore over his shoulder.
Clothes seemed a mere formality now - as a Shade he felt no change in temperature aside from some constant residual cold.
It was merely part of the garments he'd died in.
But the cloak… it had been the one Patroclus died in, and Achilles had not gone anywhere without it since his lover had died and he'd carried his body back to camp.
Achilles remembered how he had been prepared to issue out his standard message that Shades should stick to the Main Hall and how the West Hall was only allowed access for Shades who worked in the Administrative Chambers.
But that message died on his tongue as he spotted the little boy, hair a dark cloud that swept around his fair skin, mismatching emerald and ruby staring curiously up at him. Red robes cling to his slight frame, fiery feet glowing against the tiles of the floor.
Achilles remembered crouching for a closer look at the young stranger, a small smile slowly attempting to enter his features to act as some kind of comfort towards the boy who looked a bit worried after having tripped over the cloak edge.
“Hello, I don't think we've met yet,” the warrior soothed, carefully holding his spear off to his bad side, using it to help brace as support for his bad ankle. “My name is Achilles.”
The boy had nodded before a grin broke out across his own face, pointing confidently at his chest. “I'm Zagreus.”
There was no mistaking the son of his lord master, their matching eyes unmistakable, and he'd seen the boy try to garner his father's attention before.
“I like your spear!” Zagreus piped up again, leaning to the side a bit as he looked at the weapon.
The boy couldn't have been older than eight - at least in appearance - and yet he was clearly enamoured with it.
Achilles carefully shifted to hold it between them, leaning his weight more heavily on his good ankle. “Why thank you, lad. It's very similar to the one I used to use when I fought in wars on the surface.”
“You've fought wars on the surface?!” The prince’s eyes gleamed with what Achilles remembered viewing Chiron with - some form of hero worship, not quite veneration but similar - as his hands twitched at his sides. “What were they like?”
Bloody. Brutal. Satisfying. Full of glory. Backstabbing. Ruthless. Glorious.
Filled with more loss than he could put into words.
Luckily, Achilles was saved from having to answer as Nyx all but glided round the corner into the hallway, her eyes narrowing with discontent as she spotted them.
Achilles hurriedly returned to his usual position, standing, carefully moving his spear so that it was as far away from the boy as possible while he nodded respectfully towards night herself.
Zagreus turned to see who was there, letting out a happy gasp and running over to hug her. “Mama!”
“Zagreus, I told you not to run off while I was speaking with Hypnos.”
Achilles blinked, taken aback at the boy's statement.
He had seen Nyx’s children - Hypnos, Thanatos, and Charon once - and this boy shared none of their traits.
So his mind drifted, trying to think of who it may be who had given birth to this child.
And then he remembered the portrait he'd once spotted briefly in Hades' chambers, when he'd been instructed to not let anyone in (after being shown where new shipments of cloaks were to go), remembered the woman's painted green eyes and pale skin and fair hair.
He didn't know who she was, but she had to have been his mother.
Nyx's cold voice cut through his thoughts:
“Go about your business, Achilles.”
“Yes, my lady, my apologies.”
~•~
Eventually he was allowed to spend more time with the prince, teaching him the art of combat and some history of battles that had taken place on the surface, however long ago it was now.
An absent part of Achilles wondered if this would've been what it would be like if he'd raised Pyrrhus.
But he had never wanted anything to do with a son his mother forced him to have, had forced him to sleep with a woman who he did not love.
His thoughts drifted to Patroclus then, wondered what it would be like if he interacted with Zagreus.
No, he couldn't continue to yearn for the love from a time and place he had long since been denied.
He would train the prince, at the request of Zagreus himself and of Nyx.
It was his role now - his role so that Patroclus could live out his afterlife in luxury in Elysium.
“Sir Achilles?”
Achilles turned to look at where Zagreus was holding onto a sword almost as big as himself, gaze softening as he took in the boy's attempt at maintaining a fighting form. “Please, lad, no need for such formalities. I'm no longer worthy of such titles. But what is it you wish to ask?”
“Do you have any friends aside from me?” Zagreus asked, eventually wobbling a bit too much for either of them to feel safe, a silent prompt for Achilles to reach out and take Stygius from his grasp.
“First of all, I am honoured you would view me as a friend,” the warrior chuckled, setting the blade carefully off to one side as the boy stretched his arms out in front of him. “And to answer your question; perhaps. I did, once, but I'm unsure if they even know where I am now.”
“Who were they? Your other friends, I mean.”
His other friends… aside from Patroclus and Chiron, he had not attempted to hold onto those particular memories.
[Meanwhile]
Patroclus was surprised when he finally passed on to the Underworld.
Surely Elysium was not a place a man such as he should be.
He received a champion's welcome, being escorted by crowds - and one particularly sour Theseus - to an arena where he was told he would be champion.
He longed to scream, to question, to cry out the one thing that clawed at the inside of his skull - where was Achilles?
Certainly he was here also, after having murdered Hector and so many of Troy's soldiers.
Time passed in a blur of disjointed fights, most commonly with the previous champions and occasionally with another Shade or two who fancied themselves a fight.
Theseus was a pompous asshole, Patroclus had decided, after facing the man for ten days in a row.
He could only count it had been that long from where he'd been marking it off on the wall in his chambers, counting down the days he would wait until Achilles came to find him.
Asterius, the Bull of Minos, was a far more tolerable presence within his arena, and far more welcome.
He would even visit outside of fighting hours sometimes, and the two would sit in companionable silence while sipping on some of the Ambrosia kept in stock for anyone who did surpass Patroclus.
No one had.
~•~
“I should have begged him to fight more than I did,” Patroclus quietly whispered on one such occasion, staring down into the Lethe’s rippling waters.
Asterius let out a snort of air, shifting slightly in his seat as he leant forwards and ran his fingers through the water, disrupting its pattern. “Why didn't you?”
“He was too stubborn and too prideful to listen to me,” the champion replied, lifting the bottle of Ambrosia to his lips for another sip.
He had never explained that the man he occasionally mentioned was Achilles, but Asterius never asked for invasive details, merely gave his opinion based on the sparse comments they had exchanged.
“He does not seem worth your time then, good warrior,” Asterius commented, eyes downcast towards the river even as he retracted his hand. “When the king and myself ruled the arena I too wondered whether I should be there. But I was indebted to him, for he saved me from being cast into the depths of Tartarus.”
“So you followed a man who could not see past his own ego?”
The minotaur let out a rumble of laughter, finally looking towards Patroclus. “Yes. But what I am trying to say is that sometimes you follow someone despite their flaws, for they are all you have left in this world. Do you understand me, mighty warrior?”
“I do,” Patroclus sighed, passing the glass to him. “Do you think you would come and fight alongside me in the arena?”
Asterius shook his head. “I could not. My time as a champion of Elysium has passed, and I am content to spend my time in one of the farther reaches of this realm, where neither you nor the king can find me. I am content with my peace, even if solitude occasionally reminds me of darker times.”
Both fell into silence once more as he drank.
“So who are you waiting for, warrior?”
Over a thousand and eight hundred lines on the walls of his chambers now.
“No one who would care enough to seek me, it seems.”